Mamma Mia posterThe big guns still dom­in­ate pro­ceed­ings at our cinemas (at least until Thursday when the little art-house films all gang up for the Fest­iv­al). Last week was hardly worth writ­ing a column about as all the big dis­trib­ut­ors sens­ibly made way for Will Smith’s annu­al 4th of July block­buster, Han­cock (Read­ings, Empire, Regent-on-Man­ners & Embassy).

This week, the ABBA music­al (that had a sea­son at the Civic in Auck­land a couple of years ago) Mamma Mia! leads the pack. Jus­ti­fi­ably described as a phe­nomen­on since the stage show launched in Lon­don in 1996, the film fea­tures Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Stel­lan SkarsgÃ¥rd and Colin Firth singing and dan­cing their way through the ABBA back cata­logue. It’s been trailered for months now, so aware­ness should be pretty high and it’s play­ing every­where: Read­ings, Empire, Pent­house, Embassy, Light­house Petone, Regent-on-Man­ners.

[The rest of this week’s new releases sum­mar­ised after the jump]

Trail­ing in Mamma Mia!‘s wake is the latest clas­sic tv remake, Get Smart star­ring Steve Carell and Anne Hath­away (Read­ings, Regent & Empire) and Meet Dave, Eddie Murphy in fam­ily-friendly mode as a star­ship built to look like a human that arrives on Earth and falls in love. As you do. You can find Meet Dave at Read­ings, Regent & Empire).

Almost invis­ible to the naked eye is a doc­u­ment­ary called Allan Wilson, Evol­u­tion­ary which has a short pre-Fest­iv­al sea­son at the Para­mount. I could­n’t find any­thing about it, not even at the Para­mount site itself.

These won’t get reviewed at Funer­als & Snakes (or Cap­it­al Times) until a week on Wed­nes­day as next week I’m doing a Film Fest­iv­al pre­view – which I will cross-post here at about the same time. So, you’re on your own until then, people.